A method of manufacturing a thermoelectric element includes thermal-processing an ingot type material, ball-milling the thermal-processed material to a powder, sieving the powder to a fine sized powder, sintering the fine sized powder again, and cutting the sintered powder to a required size of thermoelectric element. In such a manufacturing process of a bulk-type thermoelectric element, there is a difficult problem in applying it to a product that requires slimness due to a large portion of material loss occurring during the cutting after sintering the powder, a decrease in uniformity in terms of size of a bulk material in mass production, and difficulty in thinning a thickness of the thermoelectric element.
Particularly, in the case of the thermoelectric module using such a conventional thermoelectric element, devices of a heat sink, a fan, and the like have to be installed thereunder, which causes a sudden increase in the size and thickness thereof, thereby incurring a problem of a space constraint when being applied to an actual product.